


Unfettered

by guns_and_poses



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, First Time, Handcuffs, M/M, Resolved Sexual Tension, Romance, Sexual Content, Slash, very minor instance of blood play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-13
Updated: 2011-12-13
Packaged: 2017-10-27 07:19:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/293126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guns_and_poses/pseuds/guns_and_poses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sexual tension between John and Sherlock reaches a breaking point when they wind up handcuffed together during a case.</p>
<p>
  <i>John knows he should leave it at that, but being handcuffed to Sherlock, being tied to him, feeling the intermittent brush of his fingers, is threatening to lead John’s waking mind into the titillating landscape of his dreams.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unfettered

**Author's Note:**

> Posted for a prompt requesting 'Sherlock/John handcuffed together porn'.

 

 

 

 

John and Sherlock disappear under the cover of winter’s night, slipping away from the distracted and frankly amateurish thugs who had handcuffed them together. They run, hampered at first by the unfamiliar tug and pull of the chain binding them until they fall into a more comfortable rhythm. As danger recedes so does the strumming of adrenaline through their bodies and soon, like always, they are giggling like teenagers.

They duck into the dimly-lit space between two warehouses and try to catch their breath. Sherlock reaches his right hand, the free one, into his coat pocket, frowns, then automatically reaches his left hand, the cuffed one, into his other coat pocket, pulling John’s right hand along in the process. He checks a couple more pockets inside his coat and jacket. His frown deepens. “Oh... hell. _Idiot_ ,” he mutters under his breath, as he realizes his set of lock picks, which include what would now be a very useful universal handcuff key, are nowhere to be found.

John’s brow furrows. He doesn’t need to ask to know what Sherlock had been digging around for and that he has come up empty-handed. “Well, we have to get Lestrade down here anyway. He’ll be able to unlock them.”

Sherlock scowls. “John, do you have any idea how many jokes will forever be made at our expense if Lestrade, or God forbid _Donovan_ , sees us like this?” he says, holding up their cuffed wrists.

John winces. He imagines years of worn out jibes about his and Sherlock’s competence, not to mention the seedy innuendo about the nature of their friendship which being found handcuffed together might inspire. He thinks about how Sherlock and Donovan have been at each other's throats all week, one of their bouts of vicious immaturity which have thankfully become increasingly rare due to months of John’s tempering presence. She would have a field day with this. He thinks of her eyes lighting up when she sees the handcuffs, hears her mocking voice in his head...

_‘Can't you two keep your kinky sex life to yourselves?’_

He blushes. Partly because the implications would be embarrassing. Partly because he wishes the implications were true.

Sherlock sees the flush creep up on John’s face and deduces the turn his thoughts have taken. Like many other times in recent months, Sherlock wonders if John finds the idea of being in a sexual relationship with him uncomfortable or arousing and curses himself for not being better able to read John’s emotions towards him. Deciphering clues about John’s feelings on the matter is decidedly difficult when Sherlock can’t even form a proper hypothesis as to why his own normally indifferent libido seems to respond to John’s presence.

Sherlock shakes off the distraction when his ever-observant eyes pass over a window of one of the nearby warehouses. The window’s lock looks broken and from what he can determine it’s not wired to an alarm. The sill of it sits at about the height of Sherlock’s chest. He peers through it and sees into a shabby and disorganized room cluttered with old furniture and a scattershot of odds and ends. He opens it.

Earlier in their association John might have asked Sherlock what the hell he was doing, but he has since developed enough of an understanding of the workings of the detective’s mind that he can guess Sherlock’s motivations from time to time. John’s also learned to pick his battles and a minor spot of breaking and entering in aid of finding something with which to pick a lock is one of the least troubling things he’s seen Sherlock do. “As much as I agree with you about not wanting to give Donovan any more ammunition than she already has, do we have time for this? What with, you know, wanted smugglers on the loose and all?”

Sherlock smirks. “ _Please_. They are beyond ignorant and stupidly inattentive. The only thing they have going for them is that they outnumber us. We should have a few minutes before they realize we got away and this won’t take long.” Then he adds curtly, “So calm down.” John refrains from pointing out that he _is_ calm.

Clambering through the window is an awkward chore given the handcuffs, but they manage it without undue difficulty and switch on just enough lights in the room to be able to start their search. A few minutes later John is rummaging around the surface of a table covered in an explosion of old newspapers and files and all manner of God knows what. His right arm is drawn back behind him a little, being pulled this way and that as Sherlock moves about hunting through a ceiling-high wall of battered old built-in cabinetry designed for storage, to top half of which is enclosed behind doors and the bottom half being rows of drawers. The drawers are filled with a hodgepodge of random rubbish that looks to have been unceremoniously dumped into them about an eon ago and never sorted through again. None of it will serve their purpose. Sherlock sighs and grabs for another drawer handle with his left hand, wrenching John’s arm back roughly.

“Watch it! I know this is frustrating but stop taking it out on me.” John knows he should leave it at that, but being handcuffed to Sherlock, being tied to him, feeling the intermittent brush of his fingers, is threatening to lead John’s waking mind into the titillating landscape of his dreams. And while he thinks he’s detected fleeting, amorphous indications that Sherlock might feel the same attraction, the same ever-deepening affection, the idea that Sherlock might actually want him in return is so incongruous with Sherlock’s cool demeanor and their sometimes prickly interactions, that it just doesn’t seem worth the risk of losing their friendship with some ill-fated proposition. Still, his thoughts wander into places without his permission...

_...that full bottom lip against my mouth, the taste of him, all of him, on the tip of my tongue..._

He squeezes his eyes shut briefly and blows out a breath. A distraction is in order. So he adds, “And I’m not the one who left his lock picks at home, today of all days.”

Sherlock turns to glower at him. “What do you mean ‘today of all days’?”

John stares blankly back at him and then holds up their joined wrists. “ _Today_. When we actually need them.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes. “We need them all the time, John. I use them _all_ the time. This is just the first time we’ve needed them for _this_ particular reason.” Sherlock yanks John’s wrist slightly harder than is strictly necessary so he can reach another drawer and begins sifting through its contents. “And if you must know I don’t _really_ need them now, I just need a paper clip, or _something_ –” He sighs again dramatically, slams the drawer shut and moves on to the next one. “And besides we wouldn’t be in this mess if _someone_ had brought his gun.”

His arousal swiftly diluted with anger, John turns and glares at Sherlock, incredulous. “Well if _someone_ had told me he was planning on busting into a warehouse to break up a smuggling ring tonight I might have done. Excuse me for not always wanting to have the damn thing with me every place I go. Ah yes, let me just tick everything off the list here: wallet, keys, _highly illegal firearm_ , yep all sorted! You shouldn’t just assume that I’ve got it tucked into my waistband every single time I leave the flat!”

Sherlock turns back to meet John's glare, but John's words snare in Sherlock's overactive mind and automatically begin churning out unexpected images...

_...John’s waistband... John’s waist... my fingertips trailing along his waist, skimming so lightly, around and then down, before raking my nails across his skin..._

His lips tighten into line, annoyed that his thoughts are so easily derailed. He narrows his eyes and manages to drudge up some sarcasm. “Always pithy, John.”

They stare at each other, the ire slowly draining from their expressions, and they share a placating look before returning to their task. Less than a minute later Sherlock’s eyes light on a short scrap of sturdy wire. “Ah, ha!” he yells in triumph.

“Oh, thank God!” John sighs and steps closer to Sherlock to give the chain slack.

Sherlock holds his left forearm up vertically so he can see the keyhole, his hand lax and fingers curled down. He holds the wire with his other hand and gingerly sticks it into the keyhole of his cuff and begins to place pressure on the wire in order to put a bend in it needed to open the lock. The wire is quite a bit thicker and stiffer than what would be ideal for fashioning into the proper shape, and it slips free of the hole and the force Sherlock is exerting on it propels his right hand upwards at such speed that the wire accidentally plunges into the index finger of his left hand. The wire falls from his fingers and he curses under his breath. He turns his hand over and he and John both watch his finger for a beat until a small drop of blood erupts from a tiny puncture wound. Sherlock growls in irritation.

Something about the low feral sound from Sherlock’s throat and their close proximity causes a flash of heat to burst across John’s skin. He has no explanation for why he does what he does next, because he’s a doctor and he should know better...

_...Sherlock’s fingers gliding over a crime scene photo... Sherlock’s fingers moodily plucking violin strings... Sherlock’s fingers wrapped around the grip of my gun..._

Somehow the medical professional in John that’s telling him it’s not a good idea to suck on a patient’s wound is overpowered by his passionate belief that having one of Sherlock Holmes’s long, thin, pale fingers in his mouth would be one of the best possible things that could _ever happen_.

John watches in quiet disbelief as his own cuffed hand twists and reaches. He listens to the soft metallic clinks of the chain that is binding them together as it folds onto itself when he grabs Sherlock’s tethered wrist. When Sherlock shudders from the contact, John feels brave, and fixes his eyes on Sherlock’s. John’s unwavering gaze makes Sherlock a target and pins him in place, makes him a criminal and tells him _‘surrender’_. Sherlock stares back, marked, captured.

John lifts up Sherlock’s hand, turns Sherlock’s wrist so that the injured pad of his finger is facing down, and draws the tip of Sherlock’s finger into his mouth, blood and all. Sherlock’s head tips up minutely, his lips parting slightly as he inhales sharply in surprise.

Sherlock can feel John’s tongue sliding back and forth across his finger. Wet warmth punctuated by maddening suction. He’s already half hard. He reins in his shock, closes his mouth, and matches John’s gaze. But as he continues to feel John’s tongue pressing against his fingertip, Sherlock’s breathing grows ragged and he exhales quiet puffs of air through his nose as if he’s close to hyperventilating. His brain tries to reconcile what is happening, and it takes him an foolishly long time to reach the startling conclusion that he and John want the exact same thing.

John slowly withdraws Sherlock’s finger from his mouth and asks, his voice low and unmistakably suggestive, “All better?”

Sherlock’s breathing settles as his trepidation recedes, his mouth forming the hint of a smirk, his grey eyes as hard as flint and sparking hot with desire. “Not yet,” he says dangerously and reaches around with his free hand to grasp John roughly by the nape of the neck and drag him into a kiss.

Their lips meet and it’s volatile. Incendiary. As though the atmosphere around them, suffused with and distorted by a long-smoldering tension, has finally ignited. John’s only vaguely aware of Sherlock’s fingertips pressing into the back of his neck, blunt fingernails digging into his flesh. It might be painful were he able to concentrate on it in any way, but Sherlock’s lips are opening against his, and so he opens his in return, and then his focus narrows to the hot insistence of Sherlock’s tongue against his own. Their cuffed hands fall between their chests, fingers stretching out to grab fistfuls of each other’s clothing. John steps forward, his left hand moving under Sherlock’s right arm to grip the back of Sherlock’s shoulder. Sherlock pulls him in, his greater height bending John back slightly.

John allows this show of dominance for a time, caught happily between Sherlock’s iron grip and demanding mouth. He then decides he’s ceded quite enough ground and slips his hand up from Sherlock’s shoulder, across his shoulder blade to the top of his spine, rests his palm there for a moment or two, then splays his fingers and drives them upward to curl them tightly into Sherlock’s hair and _pull_. Their lips break contact as John forces Sherlock’s head back, holding it firmly while reaching up with his cuffed hand to tear at Sherlock’s scarf, yanking it free and letting it fall. John lunges forward to scrape his teeth lightly over Sherlock’s pale neck before smoothing across it with his lips and tongue.

“Oh... _God_ ,” Sherlock drawls out in a guttural moan as his fingers on the back of John’s neck creep upwards to scrape through short hair. Sherlock’s skin flushes hot with the dizzying sensation of John’s warm and demanding mouth on his neck, and it’s suddenly suffocating underneath his damned long coat and he really wishes they weren’t handcuffed together so he could strip off some clothing.

John apparently has the same idea, and he’s not going to let a pair of handcuffs stop him. He releases Sherlock’s hair and leans back, bringing his left hand in between them to the buttons of Sherlock’s crisp white shirt. Sherlock lowers his head, cups John’s face with both hands and kisses his mouth lasciviously, invading, conquering. John’s cuffed hand scrambles to clutch Sherlock’s cuffed wrist, fingers pressing hard, spurring him on.

Sherlock’s head is still buzzing from John’s assault on his neck, so it takes a moment to register that John is actually making miraculously quick work of unbuttoning his shirt and he wonders how he’s able to do that so well one-handed and without looking at what he’s doing. Then he remembers that John, soldier and thrill-seeker, also has the dextrous fingers of a surgeon and then Sherlock can’t quite stop the moan that slips out of him when he thinks about what else those fingers might be able to do _miraculously_.

When John reaches Sherlock’s waist he impatiently yanks Sherlock’s shirt out of his trousers so he can undo the remainder of the buttons. He then sneaks his hand under the fabric and the first brush of his fingertips on Sherlock’s skin causes Sherlock to gasp against John’s lips. When John flattens his palm low against Sherlock’s stomach and dips his hand down past Sherlock’s waistband, just inside his underwear, Sherlock’s mouth falls away from John’s. “Jesus, John, your _hands_ ,” he breathes.

John chuckles hoarsely. “ _My_ hands? Fuck, Sherlock, if I even let myself _think_ about your hands on me I get hard.”

“ _God_ ,” Sherlock says again, breathless. He turns John’s head slightly and touches his tongue to John’s earlobe before sucking it into his mouth. He revels in John’s groan and breathes across his ear, “Well in that case...”

Sherlock grabs at John’s coat and yanks it off his left shoulder. John grudgingly removes his hand from Sherlock’s stomach and shrugs his arm out of the sleeve as Sherlock helps him. Sherlock uses both of his hands to unfasten and pull open John’s jeans, dragging John’s bound hand along for the ride. He pulls John’s shirt up out of his jeans and rucks it up slightly along with John’s cardigan. He slips his right hand into John’s underwear, pressing his palm to warm flesh. He slides it around John’s left hip, then further around and down John’s bare skin to grip John’s arse, _hard_ , pulling John against him until they can feel each other’s erections.

“ _Fuck_ ,” John growls. His cuffed hand moves to grip the lapel of Sherlock’s coat, and Sherlock’s cuffed hand grips his forearm. John shoves his free hand under Sherlock’s open shirt, his fingers curling in just enough to scratch Sherlock’s skin lightly with his nails as he rakes them up and over Sherlock’s right shoulder, exposing it along with half of Sherlock’s chest as he wrenches Sherlock’s shirt, jacket, and coat off and down to the crook of his elbow. John holds the fabric tight, pinning Sherlock’s arm down, and then puts just enough space between them to bend down and plant his open mouth over Sherlock’s nipple and run his tongue across it.

Sherlock groans, his knees weaken, and his fingertips slip and then tighten on John’s arse. He slumps back against the cabinetry behind him, his head lolling slowly from side to side as he struggles for breath. It’s like he’s drugged or drowning, and all he can think is that he doesn’t want to recover, doesn’t want to be saved. His eyes dart helplessly around the room as John’s tongue moves over him. “Oh God, John... _yes_.”

John draws his lips together, capturing Sherlock’s nipple momentarily before releasing it and huffing hot breath over it as he asks slyly, “‘Yes’ what, Sherlock?”

Sherlock’s eyes fall closed and he moans, then says with a smile on his lips, his voice deep, “‘Yes’ to every damn thing you have on your mind.”

It’s John’s turn to falter, his entire body overcome with a fevered rush of lust so powerful that it feels frighteningly alien. The only resemblance it bears to anything that he’s experienced before is that it threatens to drop him just as surely as a bullet. “Jesus fucking _Christ_ ,” he gasps, his head falling forward until the top of it comes to rest at the base of Sherlock’s throat, his hands gripping tighter onto Sherlock’s clothes to hold himself upright. He struggles for air, closes his eyes for a moment as long-sequestered fantasies surface in his mind...

_...sitting close in a taxi, Sherlock grinning wickedly just for me and whispering filthy, sinful things in my ear... Sherlock’s hands on me, pressing me against a wall, taking me... Sherlock writhing beneath me in my sheets, begging me to let him come..._

He opens his eyes and his gaze slithers down the long line of Sherlock’s bare torso, past Sherlock’s waistband, until it comes to rest on the bulge of Sherlock’s erection. His mouth stretches into a delirious grin. “All right then,” he says out loud to himself, as he grabs for Sherlock’s belt buckle with both hands, pulling taught on the handcuff chain to do so.

Sherlock’s eyes drift open and he tenses in anticipation as he feels John’s fingers at work. He releases his grip on John’s arse so he can shake his half-bared right arm the rest of the way out of his shirt and coat sleeves, then hooks the thumb of his cuffed hand inside his own waistband in an eagerness to help John pull his trousers open. There’s a slightly clumsy shifting of four frantic hands as two cuffed ones claw at layers of trousers and jeans and underwear to hold the clothing out of the way so that two free hands can slip inside.

The first slide of their hands on one another is not enough, it’s nothing, only a miniscule sliver of what they want from each other, and yet at the same time it is more than they could have hoped for, it’s everything, a wide expanse of intimate and carnal possibilities unfurling between them.

A frenetic pace is set, with strokes of fists on hard shafts, slips of thumbs over slick heads, and glides of tongues between yielding lips.

Long months of living together and working side by side but wanting separately and waiting in isolation have forced them to deaden their senses in each other’s presence. But all restraint is lost now, and they fervently immerse themselves in vibrant sensation: the charge of each other’s warm touches; the sweet taste of each other’s tongues; the coarse rasp of stubble; the sharp, clean fragrance of morning showers mellowed into the intoxicating evening scent of excited skin; brief, heated glances before eyes fall shut again; the erotic sounds of mouths moving against each other, teasing, gasping out _yes God faster yes John_ ; the pulsating _ache_ of arousal.

John wrenches his mouth away and says, “Do you have any idea how many things I’ve imagined doing to you?”

Sherlock’s lips quaver into a messy grin. “I’m a genius, John, I can imagine an endless number of things.”

John smirks. “Well then, _genius_ , can you imagine how often I think about you when I’m touching myself, alone, in the dark of my bedroom, under my sheets? How I imagine it’s you gripping me with those long damn fingers? Or that I imagine that it’s your cock I’ve got warm and wanting in my hand? Or that when I finally spill over my fingers I want to suck them clean so I can imagine it’s you I’m tasting on my tongue? Because I want to taste you, Sherlock. _Need_ to taste you. So come on and give it to me.”

“God... _John_ ,” Sherlock says, his voice choked like a sob, overwhelmed and gasping for air. He kisses John desperately, waiting to regain his voice and control. When he does he taunts, in between more kisses, “Give it to you? Is that an order, Dr. Watson?”

John’s breath hitches. The last time Sherlock addressed him directly with that name was so long ago, on their very first case. He’s not sure why, but hearing it now, in that low husky voice, sharpens his lust, leaving it razor-edged and searing. His mouth turns into a salacious grin. “Yes it’s an order. So come on, Sherlock.” He leans away and pierces Sherlock with a dark, predatory gaze and Sherlock stares back as their hands move urgently on one another. They devour each other with their eyes, watching for each other’s impending orgasm, so close, so very close, both of them panting, straining for breath. “Sherlock,” John says again in a whisper, then leans forward to speak against Sherlock’s lips, his voice hard like steel, “Come on, Holmes, _give it to me_.”

Sherlock cries out, a broken “John” escaping his lips, his body tensing and his eyes vulnerable but fixed steady on John’s, as he comes over John’s fingers. He marshals the strength to stay standing and continue stroking John, even as his own body trembles with pleasure and gasps for breath.

John leans away again, and Sherlock observes in numb fascination as John lets go of his cock to raise his hand up between them. John stares at his own come-slicked fingers, then reaches up towards Sherlock’s parted mouth and drags the rough knuckle of his index finger across it to leave a smear of Sherlock's still-warm come on Sherlock’s kiss-swollen bottom lip. John’s finger is barely out of the way before he’s surging forward to cover Sherlock’s mouth with his own, his tongue swiping eagerly over Sherlock’s lips. He tastes Sherlock’s release and moan all at once, the sound and sensation enough to send himself over the edge, murmuring “Sherlock” as he goes.

John collapses against Sherlock, resting his own perspiring forehead in the sweat-dampened crook of Sherlock’s bare shoulder and neck. Sherlock melts into him, pressing his cheek into John’s hair. For an age there is only the reclaiming of air into lungs and the blissful thrumming of two racing hearts.

And then, _like always_ , John starts giggling, luring an answering rumble from Sherlock and they are both laughing quietly as they lean into one another, laughing like they’ve just survived another grand adventure, like they once again got away with something that was supposed to be impossible.

Their laughter begins to fade, becoming winded and sporadic, and Sherlock asks impishly, “‘Holmes’?”

John snorts into Sherlock’s neck and gently jabs him in the ribs. “Piss off,” he says, chuckling. “It worked didn’t it?”

Sherlock smiles even as his brow draws together in slight confusion, “It was surprisingly effective.”

John huffs a low laugh then leans back, seeking Sherlock’s gaze and finding it. There’s a tremulous ebb and flow of hesitance and longing in their expressions. Each studies the other, eyes darting from eyes to lips and back again until there is a silent agreement...

_‘I want to.’_

_‘So do I.’_

Sherlock raises his cuffed hand, slowly so John’s hand can follow, and skates his fingertips delicately down John’s temple. John reaches, trying not to pull the chain too tight, and softly touches Sherlock’s lips and chin. They kiss, and it’s all new. Another first kiss. Not a kiss like before, frenzied and rough, heady and hungry, but a kiss that is serene and gentle, clear-eyed and careful. It ends, coalescing into knowing smiles and the caress of fingers on cheekbones.

They untangle their bodies from one another and look down at themselves, assessing the mess and disarray of their clothes. John’s mouth twists indignantly but all he can muster to say is “Hmm.”

Sherlock frowns in agreement, “Yes, quite.” He reaches his cuffed hand into his coat pocket and retrieves a handkerchief and they wordlessly wipe their free hands clean as best they can. Sherlock looks lost as to what to do with the handkerchief afterwards, then grudgingly rolls it up as neatly as possible and shoves it back into his coat pocket with a slight grimace that forces John to stifle a laugh. They straighten their clothing, zipping zips and re-buttoning buttons, the chain of the handcuffs going tight and then lax as they work.

“So...” John says and gives an illustrative tug on the chain. He looks around on the floor for the bit of wire, picks it up, and passes it to Sherlock.

The second attempt at bending the wire is successful and in short order the cuff around Sherlock’s wrist is popping open followed by the one on John’s. As their hands at last drift away from each other there’s an exchange of glances, oddly sad, conveying an unexpected sense of loss. Sherlock looks down at the handcuffs in his hand, musing about the seismic shift such a small thing can cause...

_...what a paradox, to be fettered and set free all at once..._

He smiles, and wonders if he possesses a heretofore unknown capacity for sentiment when he is compelled to not only slip the handcuffs into his coat pocket but the bit of wire as well. He looks up and sees John watching him and clearly reading his thoughts. “Shut up,” Sherlock says with a smirk and a soft laugh, and John shakes his head in amusement.

Sherlock stands a bit straighter, his bearing hardens, and he nods to indicate the window. “Now to go keep an eye on our incompetent quarry and call in our minimally less incompetent reinforcements,” he says, a gleam in his eye that draws a rakish grin from John.

Sherlock crawls through the window and jumps down to the ground, turning back and laying a steadying hand on John’s forearm as he drops down after him. The contact is now tinged with new and deeper meaning, and they share a look in acknowledgement. Sherlock slides his hand downwards slightly until his fingers encircle John’s wrist briefly, then starts to release him. John reaches, catches Sherlock’s hand. Sherlock’s long fingers curl around John’s as a reply, as a promise. Another smile, and then they let go. Sherlock winks, John laughs, both run, and once again they disappear under the cover of winter’s night.

 

 

 


End file.
